


Set Me As a Seal Upon Your Heart

by runsinthefamily



Series: Purgatory [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas is more self-aware these days, Handprint, Purgatory, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:28:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runsinthefamily/pseuds/runsinthefamily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <img/><p>http://www.flickr.com/photos/ch9sab/7378954066/</p>
    </blockquote>





	Set Me As a Seal Upon Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> http://www.flickr.com/photos/ch9sab/7378954066/

“ _ **Another Eden tree**_ ,” said Cas, his head drooping down. _Mourning,_ his wings pronounced. _Sorrow._

“This one’s dead.” Dean stared through the sparse trees to the gnarled, leafless, broken thing.

Lightbulb sang out, a throb of pain, and Dean reached out to cup a hand around him. Heat fluttered against his palm.

Cas sighed but for once didn’t tell Dean off for ‘carelessly shaping the ineffable.’ “ _ **Yes**_.”

“But Joshua planted it?”

“ _ **Long and long ago**_.” Cas turned away, his huge sloping shoulders shifting beneath the skin. 

Dean tipped Lightbulb off into the curve of a wing and trotted a couple steps to catch up to Cas’s head. Currently Cas was about the size of a horse, with great soft cat paws, a lumbering bear-like body, and a face caught somewhere between human and lion. He was a dim, shimmery grey, which made Dean paranoid about losing sight of him in the endless damn fog. 

“How long we been here, and we haven’t seen a single, you know, inhabitant,” said Dean. “It’s making me uneasy.”

“ _ **They know we are here**_.” Cas shivered, minutely, was abruptly scaled like a fish, glittering and cold. 

Dean put a hand to Cas’s cheek, which had elongated subtly. He was more wolf than cat now. “Does it hurt?” Dean asked. “Cuz it looks like -“

“ _ **It doesn’t hurt**_ ,” said Cas. “ _ **I just wish it would stop. It’s disconcerting**_.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dean, uselessly. It had to suck, your body changing channels on you without warning. Like puberty, times a thousand. He bit the inside of his cheek.

_Resignation, amusement_ , said Cas’s wings.

“Stop reading my mind,” said Dean, automatically.

Lightbulb pinged again.

“Laugh it up, lightball,” said Dean. “Any idea of when it might, you know, stop?” He missed Cas’ face. Well, technically, it was Jimmy’s, but Jimmy was long gone to heaven, leaving Cas the inheritor, as it were. And Cas inhabited it in a way that Jimmy simply had not. He’d been a nice enough guy, but on him, the blue eyes and plush lips and high cheekbones had been attractive but unremarkable. On Cas …

On Cas everything had been so much more.

_Astonishment_ , said Cas’ wings. _Pleasure. Gratitude._

Dean flushed brick red. 

“ _ **I find your body beautiful as well**_ ,” said Cas.

“Oh for god’s sake,” said Dean.

“ _ **It was a pleasant task, rebuilding it. I realize now that you would have preferred I leave the scars, but at the time, I wanted to make you perfect**_.”

“You left one scar,” Dean pointed out.

Cas’ wings twitched. _Proud_? No. _Smug_. ” _ **I did**_.” 

Lightbulb sang out, a complicated trill that hung in the foggy air, unexpectedly beautiful.

“What - what was that?” Dean asked, surprised. Lightbulb had restrained himself to single notes up until now.

”’ _ **As a seal upon your arm**_ ,’” said Cas, also suprised. His wings snapped open and then shut again. Lightbulb drifted off and slid in between Cas’ shoulderblades. “ _ **It is a quote from the Bible**_.”

“The Bible?” Dean asked. He reached out and scooped Lightbulb up. Prickling warmth suffused his fingers.

“ _ **The Song of Solomon**_ ,” said Cas.

Lightbulb sang it again, and then again, louder.

“Alright, alright,” Dean muttered. “We get it.” He stuck Lightbulb back into Cas’ wing, shoving him deep into the feathers to muffle the sound. Cas twitched at the contact and Dean snatched his hand away.

They walked on in silence for a while. The Eden Tree fell away in the mist.

“Why?” Dean asked, finally.

Cas folded his wings tightly against his back. “ _ **I didn’t know, at the time. But now I think I did it out of pride. I wanted you to know that it was I who had saved you. And for any who looked upon you to know it, as well. Later - later I saw it more as a promise. That I would not abandon you, or your cause**_.”

“And now?” Dean asked, choosing for now to leave the issue of abandonment alone.

“ _ **We have been through much together, you and I**_ ,” said Cas. 

It wasn’t really an answer but Dean nodded just the same, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.


End file.
